With more than 3,000 students participating in the performing arts at RIT, including a record 601 new Performing Arts Scholars and more than 50 performing arts-focused student clubs, it’s not hard to find instrumental, vocal, theatrical, and dance performances on and around campus throughout the year.
RIT’s School of Performing Arts and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf have released their 2025/2026 Joint Theatrical and Dance Season. From small ensembles playing in intimate settings such as the Allen Chapel, to staged, ticketed productions in the Robert F. Panara Theatre and the Sklarsky Glass Box Theater in the SHED, there will be plenty of opportunities to enjoy the students’ talents.
“The Performing Arts ecosystem on campus has grown at a staggering pace, with one in seven undergraduate students on campus a Performing Art Scholar,” said Erica Haskell, director of the School of Performing Arts. “We offer our students the opportunity to major in STEM-focused fields while participating, at a high level, in music, theater, technical theater, and dance. Our performing students continue to exceed expectations.”
Carlos Ortiz/RIT
Double Stop!, a rocking cello duo featuring Brandon Faunce, seated, and Gavin Palmer performed as the previous year’s winners during last February’s Ovation: RIT Performing Arts Competition.
Students have recently won prestigious awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and the RIT Wind Ensemble was selected to perform at the College Band Director’s National Association Eastern Convention.
“These honors are usually only achieved by students pursuing degrees in the performing arts,” Haskell said. “Our highly qualified and deeply interdisciplinary faculty provide expertise and inspiration that enrich students’ experience and result in exceptional performances while the Rochester arts community offers ample events and performances to attend.”
Among the first public performances this year are during the communitywide ESL Rochester Fringe Festival, Sept. 9-20, which boasts more than 600 events. Several are RIT-related, including performances of a cappella groups, dance, improv, and short films by RIT students. All RIT events are free and held in downtown Rochester at the Little Theater, 240 East Ave. Free shuttle service on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays is available for students.
On Oct. 17-19, numerous performances by student groups will be held throughout campus during Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend.
The comedic thriller The 39 Steps, adapted from a movie by Alfred Hitchcock, runs Nov. 7-10. As with all RIT/NTID Performing Arts productions, deaf actors will use American Sign Language, while hearing actors will perform in spoken English.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with a technological twist, will be performed Nov. 13-16. It will include music with ambient electronic backing tracks and live percussion, performed by students stationed throughout the Sklarsky Glass Box Theater. “Each percussion station, positioned on the balconies, will feature a mix of traditional instruments such as cymbals and drums, and unconventional ‘found instruments’ such as brake drums, metal pipes, wrought iron fencing, thunder sheets, wooden boxes, and metal tanks,” said Joel Hunt, assistant professor of music and the production’s musical director.
The popular student talent competition, Ovation: RIT Performing Arts Competition, is scheduled for Feb. 6 in Ingle Auditorium. There are typically a wide variety of acts, some solo, some bands, some ensembles, and some surprises. Students audition for a spot to compete for top honors.
On March 26-29, The Nether, a sci-fi thriller that examines the nature of mortality in a virtual age, will be performed in the Sklarsky theater. Living in a virtual world, the characters explore the boundaries of reality, ethics, and identity.
The inaugural event at the new Music Performance Theater, featuring a 750-seat theater, is expected this spring. Till There Was You, directed by Christopher Ryan, celebrates the diverse ecosystem at RIT with theater, dance, and music, with various selections from musical theater.
On April 17-19, Pure Imagination: The Magical Candy Shoppe, will feature a fantastical world told through fusion of dance, music, American Sign Language, and multimedia, with ballet, tap, jazz, modern, Afro hip-hop, acrobatic dance, animated avatars, and cutting-edge projection technology. It will also be the final performance at RIT for Professor of Practice Thomas Warfield before his retirement.
And dozens of campus bands with hundreds of student musicians are expected at the Unlabeled Music Festival on April 18 in the SHED.
For more information on the productions and ticket information, visit the Performing Arts website.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rit.edu ’
